News

Floodwater to remain high at Barmah

By Monique Preston

Nov 8, 2022

High river: State Emergency Service incident controller Ray Jasper told those gathered at a community meeting in Barmah that the Murray River was expected to remain against the town’s levee banks until at least November 15. Photo by Megan Fisher

The high river level at Barmah means water is expected to be lapping at the town’s levee banks until mid-November.

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Residents at a community meeting in Barmah on Saturday, November 5, were told the Murray River level at Barmah was not expected to drop below 6.8m until at least November 15.

However, they were told while the river level would remain high for some time yet, it was not expected to peak again.

Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority’s Guy Tierney said what was being seen in the Barmah and Lower Moira area now was “prolonged water” levels.

“We are not going to see renewed rises here,” he said.

State Emergency Service incident controller Ray Jasper told the gathering that authorities were aiming for a river height that had dropped to 6.8m at Barmah.

“That’s the level we believe water will be off the (levee) bank and we can stop pumping,” he said.

“The water coming down the Murray River is not going to put us back to the peak but it will sustain around the 7m mark until November 15.

“Which means water will still be against the levee, and pumping will still be required until then.

“The 6.8m is when we estimate water will be off the levee.”

Mr Jasper said Fire Management Victoria and SES crews would remain in the town pumping water until the levels dropped below 6.8m.

“We’ll be here as long as we need to be,” Mr Jasper said.

He told the meeting that after the floods, there would also be a review into levee banks and which ones were valuable moving forward.

With Barmah residents having been the initial people filling sandbags and working on levee banks, Moira Shire councillor Wayne Limbrick said there were a lot of “orphan levees” in Moira Shire that needed to be looked at by authorities in the future.

“We’ve got a whole lot of orphan levees on properties — some are Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority’s, some are private, some are Parks Victoria,” he said.

“We need to look at all of them. We can’t afford to wait until the next one (flood).”

Mr Jasper told those at the meeting that Parks Victoria did not formally maintain any of the levees on its land.

Cr Limbrick said an early response plan needed to be introduced for towns such as Barmah.

He said it should be community-driven and would therefore let towns start preparation work for floods in the future when they thought they needed to be started, rather than when authorities arrived in town to start work in times of a natural disaster.